The spectrum of lattice QCD with staggered fermions at strong coupling

Using 4 flavors of staggered fermions at infinite gauge coupling, we compare various analytic results for the hadron spectrum with exact Monte Carlo simulations. Agreement with [O. Martin, Large N gauge theory at strong coupling with chiral fermion, PhD thesis, CALT-68-1048, 1983; O. Martin, B. Siu, Phys. Lett. B 131 (1983) 419; O. Martin, Phys. Lett. B 130 (1983) 411] is very good, at the level of a few percent. Our results give credence to a discrepancy between the baryon mass and the critical chemical potential, for which baryons fill the lattice at zero temperature and infinite gauge coupling. Independent determinations of the latter set it at about 30% less than the baryon mass. The likely explanation is that the nuclear attraction becomes strong at infinite gauge coupling.